Misunderstood

Recently I have had a few comments directed at me in terms of my happiness. Interestingly it is not that I am unhappy, I am, it is more that I don't laugh continuously, loudly, raucously etc. I do express my thoughts, a lot, and I am a very deep thinker. Due to this I think people misunderstand me. They say things like 'you are not the happiest person on the planet' etc, or 'you don't smile or laugh enough' etc etc. Those who know me, know that I have a wicked sense of humour and I do like to laugh a lot in the right setting and when I am not thinking about other things.

I find this really weird. I was going to say insulting but I am not insulted, just confused. So for those of you who don't know me and those of you who do, I thought I would share with you some of my characteristic thoughts about myself. Another words how I perceive myself. Now my observations of myself are based on my own knowledge of psychiatry and counselling and my personal experiences and how they have shaped my thoughts about myself. I think this is a good exercise for me to do at this point in time because there seems to be a lot of negative comments coming my way lately and I need to shrug this off so that I can remain balanced. A bit like a duck after it has dived into the water and when it surfaces it shakes its body and the beads of water roll off it's back. Thats me.

I have experienced an interesting life and not one that I would like to share with you all here, suffice it to say it has developed very early in my life, a desire to self analyse so that I can stay sane. You may call it survival techniques and I think the majority of people develop these techniques all in different ways. Mine is self analysis because I am a thinker. So here are few things I perceive about myself.

Firstly I think out loud. This at times gets me into trouble because people think I am making an opinion when really all I am doing is having multiple thoughts that need to be aired so that I can come to a conclusion. A bit like putting chaos into order, because I have so many thoughts about an issue it is necessary for me to do this. It helps me to divide and separate the pros and cons of a concept or idea. Sometimes I do this silently and it makes me appear as though I am dismissing people or that I am aloof or that I am unhappy because I am not smiling, or because I have a tendency to grunt when people speak to me if my thoughts are elsewhere. I apologise if I have done this to any of you but now you know why. I am very intense in my thoughts because I like to think. I find it interesting. I would call it philosophy. I philosophise about ideas, concepts and how things work, socially, economically and politically and how that affects the environment in which we live as human beings. See I am always thinking about people. I like thinking so just because I am not smiling and laughing and giggling and shouting from the roof tops 24/7 does not mean that I am not happy. It just means I am pre-occuppied. Nothing wrong with that I reckon.

Now happiness is a whole different ball game. You see I actually am happy. Some days it is hard because life has it's ups and downs but I know that 80% of my life is very happy and I love it, 10% of my life is a pain in the neck but manageable and the other 10% is crap. So out of a score of 100% I reckon I am doing okay. I think there is way too much emphasis on smiling and laughing. I have seen smiling laughing people in action and I reckon the majority of them are miserable as. Because if you look deeply enough you can see pain in their eyes. Thats just my observation of some of those smiling laughing people that I have witnessed in the social arena. The other thing about happiness is whose gauge is it on. On my scale I'm ecstatic, well not ecstatic, but up there and close to that. I am pretty happy most of the time, what I am not is a smiling, giggling, noisy twit. And on my scale thats fantastic...lol

I am passionate about changing the world as you would have gathered from my blog and I love the environment and I am always trying to convince people to stop killing our planet and moving to another planet in the universe should not be allowed because we don't know how to take care of this one so why should we be allowed to pollute another one. See I get off track all the time because I think a lot. Now where was I. Happiness, and whose scale, yes whose scale is the happiness meter measured on? Seeing as I do think a lot and I am a little black duck, I have decided to measure on my own scale. On what is important to my happiness according to the world of Barb. This decision is based on my conclusions that my own happiness is up to me and me alone and I am the only person who can deliver this to me. So in future if you feel the need to comment on my frown lines (I was born frowning, just goes to show I was born to think ) and my quietness or my airing of my thoughts to create order from chaos out of my head, please refrain from the urge to tell me how unhappy I may look, or appear to be, or sound, because the reality is these things have nothing to do with how happy I am. I am 80% happy with my life, just got to get rid of the 10% crap and then it's all good. And why do I not get rid of the 10% pain in the neck you ask? Some things you have to keep because they are manageable and it keeps you grounded and reminds you how lucky you are that the pain in the neck is not a constant in your life just an irritation that pops up every now and then like a rash. It helps you to stay balanced and balance is important.

I hope this clears things up a little and if your perception of me is different and you feel the urge to voice your concern about my happiness using the words 'you are not happy!' or anything along that line, please feel free to keep it to yourself for you would be misreading my happiness meter.

Much appreciated.